Authorizations, license

Interesting participatory art

So I was reading an article on Wired.com about artists who are mapping data from various sources to create pieces of art. One of them is Sheep Market where the artist hired people through Amazon.com using a new feature called Mechanical Turk where you can hire people to do repetitive tasks that are suited to human processing better than computers. His website is http://www.aaronkoblin.com/work/thesheepmarket/index.html and outlines the process. I find the whole thing fascinating as it is a very creative use of technology and the social aspects of the web to carry out a creative artistic project that is very human at heart. Unlike the very processed and very abstract computer art that has been around for awhile some of which I was indulging in using a folding filter on photoshop this returns a product that although using technology as a mediator it returns drawings that were done by people and reflect the diversity of people and their own vision of how a sheep should look and moderated by their particular drawing talent. The admixture of the two worlds, including the funny kind of commerce makes the whole thing very exciting to me. Now you have read if you read this blog about my traveling man project, perhaps I should have offered money to make this work. Sadly I can't even get more than three people to receive my postcards and while I am happy they do it is frustrating that I can't seem to generate much more enthusiasm about the project. On flickr I started a really interesting discussion about creating art and then that went flat as well, never being able to raise a discussion again. I seem to be a one hit wonder. I feel like I am pushing against marshmallows, stuff moves but gains no real motion. But that is a discussion for another day. I think from this article I will take the inspiration to aim for and see what I can do, if I don't attempt to do anything I will accomplish nothing, and it is in the journey that we learn our lessons.